UWMCCF Background
Mission Statement The purpose of Mandarin Chinese Christian Fellowship (MCCF) is to be a witness for Christ on campus. First, it is to be a fellowship that helps spread the Christian gospel to the students on campus. We have a special focus on mandarin speaking students because we can connect with them better in terms of language and culture. Secondly, MCCF has been striving to become a club where members can come to have Christian fellowship with one another. Through which, most importantly, one’s relationship with God deepens, and is then expressed in worship, love and good deeds among other things. 'Recent History of MCCF' MCCF was started by a group of Mandarin speaking students who were originally attending CCF in around 2000. They saw the need of a Mandarin fellowship on campus, and started it after much prayer. Over the past few years, MCCF has seen some tremendous growth. The number of attendees grew from just over 20 to about 40 within the past two years. 'Constitutional Status' In 2013 Spring, MCCF has officially became a FEDS club. See our Constitution. In 2011 and past, MCCF was officially a part of CCF under the CCF Constitution. This created inconveniences when we collaborated with external sources. Since our collaboration with Kitchener-Waterloo Chinese Alliance Church (KWCAC) began in September 2011 (explained below), we have been in the process of creating our own Constitution and becoming an independent Federation of Students (FEDS) club. All clubs on UW campus belong to FEDS. 'Collaboration with Local Churches' As MCCF grew larger, the need for a spiritual councilor and authority in our midst to guide and correct us arose. Naturally, we sought help from KWCAC, the largest Chinese speaking church in Waterloo. After many meetings and discussions during the summer of 2011, trial collaboration was established. Between September 2011 and April 2012, Ping Situ (司徒萍) from KWCAC is assigned to council the MCCF ministry. We benefited very much from her wisdom, insight, and support. A couple of uncles and aunties at KWCAC also started to come to MCCF every now and then, to better understand the life of a student. As Situ left for the US, we had Pastor Gui from KWCAC temporarily oversaw MCCF. In 2014, KWCAC hired a youth pastor and Lincoln Road Chapel hired a Chinese pastor, in which both churches provide college/youth fellowships at their locations, hoping to provide a "spiritual home" or "home church" for students so that they can grow spiritually under the pastor and church's supervision. The pastors from both churches provide us guidance while MCCF remains as an independent decision maker in the process. The uncles/aunties also join our pre-study/bible study. We pray and trust that God is doing His mighty work through us all. 'Brief Introduction of University of Waterloo (UW)' Faculties and Programs UW has six faculties: Applied Health Sciences, Arts, Engineering, Environment, Mathematics, and Science. Undergraduate 4-year programs are either regular or co-op. Regular students study during the Fall term (September to December) and Winter term (January to April), and take the Spring term (May to August) off. Co-op students rotate between study and work terms according to their programs’ available “sequences”. Co-op degrees usually require either 4 or 5 completed 4-month work terms. Co-op students apply to jobs through UW’s Jobmine website; most interviews happen on the UW campus. Co-op students usually do not have terms off. Every term of the year, they are either in a study or a work term. A co-op degree therefore takes one more year to complete than a regular degree. There is usually a 1-3 week break between terms. Typically, a student takes 5 or 6 courses in a study term. Each study term consist of about 3 months of lectures and two weeks of final exams. Students need to cope with assignments, midterm exams, group projects, and final exams in each course. The course load gets progressively heavier as they enter their upper years. Many students choose to live near UW for the convenience factor. Chinese Students in UW Most of the Chinese students are enrolled in the Faculty of Mathematics, Engineering, or Science. Chinese students in UW are becoming increasingly Mandarin-speaking. With many partnerships between UW and Chinese universities, the number of international students grows rapidly. As an illustration, there are many so called “2+2” programs set up between UW and Chinese universities. Students in China study for two years in a Chinese university, then finish the degree by studying two more years in UW. Because of this, certain programs in UW have entire classes of people from China. Most Chinese students, when given the option, prefer the co-op program to the regular program. Chinese students tend to have fairly active social life. Many clubs are formed by Chinese students. Typical social activities include sports, eating out, karaoke, card games, studying, etc.